Hello everyone, I'm looking into some studio monitors and have heard lots of different and conflicting opinions on what brands work the best overall. I want to hear about your setup, how you hear and analyze the sound, and which products yout think have the best overall sound, value, etc. Do you use soundproofing as well? What kind? How much? Where can I find it?

If you ask 5 different people you'll probably get 5 different recommendations. Overall though, a monitor's purpose is to accurately represent the sound, and not to color it in any way. Standard stereo and computer speakers often have an EQ built into them, in order to make the music sound better. I forget the name of it, but one of the most used and most famous monitor speakers ever was known for basically sounding like shit. they were expensive as hell, too. Basically, if you could make music sound good on those speakers, they would sound good on any speakers.

Browse around online stores and see which monitors have the highest reviews in your price range. Get into a habit of listening to music on them, so you get used to their sound. When you mix down music on your new monitors, it helps to have another album to listen to, so you can A/B it and compare sounds. Regardless of the quality of the music, Metallica's "Black album" is great for this. Shitty music, but extremely well produced. One thing I personally avoid is monitors with 3 or 4 inch woofers. I tune down to C standard, and sometimes B, and I do not feel comfortable judging those low notes on a 3 inch woofer. The monitors I'm purchasing soon have 8 inch woofers, which I feel much more comfortable with. That's just a personal preference though, and even Ola Englund has monitors with little woofers in his home studio, and he gets incredible tones there.

As for your room setup, you can just place them on your desk, but you would definitely benefit from acoustic treatment in the room they are in. At the minimum, get some inexpensive bass traps to put in the corners of the room, and place some acoustic tiles on the wall opposite the monitors, as well as on the wall behind them. That will help reduce reflection, and make the signal that goes to your ears a bit more "pure", if you will. You can get decent acoustic tiles and bass traps on eBay for pretty cheap - roughly $100 to outfit a room with the minimum.

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I forget the name of it, but one of the most used and most famous monitor speakers ever was known for basically sounding like shit. they were expensive as hell, too. Basically, if you could make music sound good on those speakers, they would sound good on any speakers.

You're talking about these. They've been discontinued and replaced with the Yamaha HS and MSP series, both of which are top notch (the latter especially).

Speaking of which, the Yamaha HS80M have received lots of praise from metal musicians, notably on Ultimate Metal. They're regarded as great bang for the buck (around $600 for a pair, more if you want them modded) and they translate better than others at their price range. However, because they're big and have a fairly powerful low-end, they can mess with your room and induce a lot of unwanted ringing and boominess if your room is not acoustically treated with bass traps, so keep that in mind. This is also true for nearly all monitors that have speakers larger than 6". In the end, whatever speakers you choose, you will have to spend a lot of time critically listening to them and learning them inside-out in order to fully understand exactly what they sound like and how they can help you with your mixes.